Q&A with Tristan Tucker: The #1 thing I would CHANGE in the HORSE world
How would you answer that question? And curious about my answer? Watch the video below!
Let me know in the comments what your opinion on this is!
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Thank you for your thoughts. For me, the most important thing is that the time I spend with the pony is happy. And that we both enjoy it. And so a lightness has set in that I appreciate very much. I usually have a smile on my face as soon as my pony looks at me. Many years ago, I had the opportunity to look over the shoulder of a renowned animal trainer. There I learned: stay calm, stay consistent, give clear commands and if something doesn’t work, get help as soon as possible so that the exercise comes to a good end. And then finish the day. This sovereignty is still a model for me today.
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Thank you Tristan,
Your answer is deep and meaningful. I do agree. My view point is not one from the feeling of fulfillment from events, shows, competition etc within the horse world but from an autistic view with my horse. I am high functioning autistic (Asperger’s) my relationship with my horse is not geared to showing off or getting a hit from rosette/trophies. My horse brings me purpose in routine, he brings me joy when l get it right, he brings me opportunity to be absolutely myself where humans do not, because l struggle to fit into their world. My horse sees me in Aotearoa it is called Kia Ora. My desire is to learn to be closer to him, to feel him in my being, to dance with him and he dance with me, to connect through our hearts and minds as one- even for a moment is the greatest of joy.
I not able to do neurotypical people stuff it makes me feel awful. I can be with my young horse and be free to be.
My horse is three and a half, l am practicing/learning from you Tristan on your young horse course. Your course is fantastic and truly delightful, please know l am deeply grateful for your depth of wisdom and knowledge, grateful that you share your knowledge and wisdom. It is truly inspiring, truly a joy and a relief because you are honest, kind, loving and funny.
Thank you, because my autistic brain is peaceful with your teachings. Fantastic 😊
I don’t understand what you mean by ‘focusing on the bad’. There are some pretty fearless people out there going out on a limb to highlight what is actually going on in the upper reaches of the sport where the riding highlighted has nothing to do with what any of us was taught was okay. Meanwhile, those inside the industry, which is highly self protective, for all the wrong reasons, say nothing. So if you want to do something postive … speak out about what is wrong and educate about what is right
🙏 id love to lift the good things… ones you see the terrible things, there is always a positive polarity somewhere… the awarness whats not wanted.
People are so “sleepy” … or lazy … its easier to see the negative in life with horse.
“All starts with a thought”
Maybe it is because I am not so young any more (65) but I find it really easy to avoid/ignore all the negative stuff. There are only so many hours in the day in which to follow truly inspirational people like yourself Tristan and like Warwick Schiller, Mark Rashid, Gabi Neurohr, Jim Masterson, James French ( and I could go on and on with this list ), and to meditate every day, eat healthy food, do Pilates, and oh I nearly forgot – spend time with my seven horses, learning how to be the best horse owner I can be, communicating with them, making sure they and I are happy and having a good time, whilst forever learning about myself. So I completely agree with all you said, just shine your own true light, and everyone who is searching or seeking or looking for the same thing, will find you, and our lights will eventually shine everywhere.
the “equestrian movement without violence” is developing in Poland, I hope it will be like a virus 😉 that will cause a pandemic – not hurting horses and it will be for the benefit of two such different species of Man and Horse. I hope…
Hi Tristan
I forget to think when I am around my horses, I do my chores and clean the yard and enjoy being. Same thing when I am ridding, I don’t feel there are problems, only learning, I know, when my horse is not responding the right way she most likely does not understand my aids, so I try again till she does. Horses are very willing to learn in happy circumstances, they don’t in fearful circumstances. I love my horses and ponies and they know it. And I love the way you work with horses to Tristan, epresiate all that you do, x
Thank you, Tristan, for a very thoughtful and thought provoking discussion. I think what is most important, no matter the discipline or desired outcome or accolades one wants from working with horses, the horse’s interest should be foremost. Whether the goal is to ride down the trail, excel in competition, work out on a ranch, teach people to ride, provide a therapeutic experience (the list goes on) how the horse experiences it is more important than the human goal. If it is only about the the person and their goals, corners with be cut, ethical boundaries will be crossed and horses will suffer from that. If the same goals can be reached with the horse’s best interest in mind , then the sky is the limit. I think that your method of working with horses and the mindset it takes to work this way shows that the highest levels can be reached while making sure that the horse is prepared and with us physiacally, mentally and emotionally.
When I was a vegan because I thought using animal products was wrong due to intensive farming, I read a book by a woman called Temple Grandin. She spent a lot of time researching/developing a system in abattoirs to improve as best as possible, in the most humane way, the slaughter of cattle for food. It was one of the most inspiring books I’d read. Here was a person who rather than simply criticising or abandoning (like I guess I had) the real situation, devoted her time to improving things..as far as I know her system was adopted all across the U.S..your video reminded me of her approach
Dear Tristan
I so agree with your philosophy on focusing on the positive— I see it in all your training sessions. The main reason I left social media is because so many seem to just focus on the negative—not just in the equine world—and it was quite dismaying. I think it is very brave to point this out and try and show that their indeed is a better way. Thank you.
Dear lovely Tristan, you are oh so right…and oh so wrong😐 The positive is the yin of the negative yang. There is no day without night, the power of peace is only held by the knowledge of the horror of war etc etc Do you get what i’m saying here 🤨 The positive and the negative are NOT mutually exclusive, they are two sides of the same coin… If you solely focus on the positive but neglect honest discussion of the negative then you are giving half the story. Ignore the aggressive, the inhumane, the cruel, the oppressive, the negligent and neglectful, the ignorant, the misconstrued, the downright evil that goes on in our world of horses and their humans at your peril. BUT with every sad, painful observation, every story, every picture that we present or comment on let’s make sure we demonstrate the better way in thought, in words, in deeds. Let’s strive to be better, to put our horses welfare at the heart of every day with our horses, whatever we do and wherever we are. But please don’t ignore the sad, the mad and the bad people in our world of horses, because that won’t ever help those suffering horses that need us humans to give them a voice. Be the voice of the voiceless, horses can’t speak our language, we can listen to their stories through, they deserve to be heard!
I love your insight and depth Tristan. Your positive attitude is soooo right. Making Yourself feel good is contagious and inspiring to others, focusing on good is good❤️ Thank you
Hi Tristan, for me this question goes very deep and not so easy to answer, I will give it a try. I think the way to make a better horse world is about people moving towards awareness that the world is made of energy and that every change in ourselves causes the world to change something. Send positive thoughts and actions in the world including to your horse will have an impact. It’s not so much about what should be different in the horse world this happens automatically as we open up to growth and experience more that we are a part of the whole and certainly look with humility at everything and everyone around us without judging.
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates. 👏👍
Dear Tristan, we cannot change the world………….. I can think of a lot of things that need to be chanced, like : jurors should judge, horse and rider, by everything that goes right instead of wrong. The training of instructors of horses, should be that they teach children young and old to learn to ride without aids, and so on.
What we can change is what is in us. We can share what we know and experience. ( like Mahatma Gandhi , my tru master for live) .
Mahatma Gandhi did Practice what he preached. If you are aware of what you do say and think and know. This will have an effect on human , animal and nature. That would be a start of change. All starts by the change within. For example if you do what you did, you will get what you got.
Small example of experiencing change: drink water in the morning for a few days, when you are used to drink thea. Feel what it does within. Be playful, and conscious of what you consume, take more of the nice things in like when: out of the ten time the one time your horse comes to you when you call, look for what happed in the horse there and in you and around you.
Sorry for the bad English I am dutch. Greetings Sylvia
Sylvia Hendriks,
Hi Tristan, I just saw you’re video. Beautiful spoken, and you can make a change because you have so many followers and student like me all over the world.
Namaste Sylvia
Hello Tristan,
What a topic! There as many sides to a situation as there is people looking at it. So in theory we can choose the way how we see, feel or talk about things. In reality, this is so much more complex and we need a lot of willpower to keep on the positiv track. I have spent my entire life in different kind of collective ways of living. Doing a lot of travelling in many different countries and circumstances. Trying to find the way of a selfempowerd life within different communities. This has turned out to be very rewarding, but also i have witnessed the power of the bad word, which seems incredibly contagous. Perfectly feeding the madness we are facing in this mad times. The collective enemy keeping your bubble together still works perfectly.
I have spent some years living in the streets of Italy, where the tone is at first nice and positive. As a grumpy german 😉 i have learned a lot about creating a positive vibe in a community. But also there, once the coin turned it could get quite nasty.
There is much work involved in triyng to see all sides of the coin and finding a positive constructive way of going forward. Seeing and saying the critical points without that negativ sting. Getting 56 years i am still working on it, still getting lost. All we can really do , is trying to change ourselfes into a authentic person. If it happens to convince other people about that, we are lucky.
One thing i realised in the TRT community is the gentle way comments would be formulated, which is a whole lot of different to what i see normally in social media. Thank you for creating this plattform. To me this and the TRT method is the missing link to many bits i could not connect before, presented in a way that proves a lot of insight, dedication and positive willpower.
I have a great respect for that.
Love this…ironically I was thinking myself this week the realisation I play/work with horses for a feeling…I also am mindful of trying to keep my own version of me as I learn from other fellow horseman
For me, looking for the positives is great, but to deny any negative is blissful denial and doesn’t change anything, one doesn’t have to look at the negatives with a negative mind but A positive one for change or empowerment with the option to do something about it. But trying to be constantly positive does change your brain and some aspect of your external world but is also a form of spiritual bypassing as the underlying current of your vibration is still one based on your childhood traumas and no amount of positivity will change that unless healing can occur !!.
To add, some people take this positive thinking too far, and you literally can’t say anything to them other than everything is so fine, great amazing, because they won’t interact with you, and this feels like a form of narcissism ! And when you are responding in this fake positive manner you are denying an aspect of yourself that wishes to be heard.
Such a huge topic to address. I enjoyed your well spoken, polite and thoughtful answer to the question. I still will check with Brett Kidding to find out more of what you are thinking, speaking of the yin and yang of things…
When I trained to become a certified dressage judge, we were told to always keep in mind to lift the positive aspects of the ride because the failures and “bad” things will always be the ones that catch our eyes and attention and so very easy to point out. Good things are much harder to bring up, and the rider really need to hear them to bre able to develop.
Ruthlessly pointing out faults, regardless of if we do it in good faith and with kind intention, or lording them over their heads, the recipient of criticism that orders: “do not!” will seldom learn anything but shame, lack of self confidence and is more likely to be adverse to your advice and stick to his own guns.
A person who, on the other hand, is lifted in its positive action and is instructed in and shown “how to do things” in a way that makes them feel on equal terms, will invariably be more susceptible and interested in changing their (erring) ways.
Same as with a toddler. You don’t tell them “stop throwing the toys!” because you will get much better results if you calmly sit down and show them what they can do instead.
Thank you Tristan. I loved listening to your oversight on what motivates people in the horse world. You have a mature perspective which is non-judgemental. I would like to emulate this and hopefully see it develop in the competition sphere.
Howzit Tristan nd all ! Great words spoken by a good person…I feel that to change things we have to first work on our selves…life in today’s world , can be for some , really stressfull, anger levels can be high… and the horse gets the outward flow of that energy (or …) so there’s a great secret from the past called Mantra , ancient sounds that create good vibrations inwards and so with acceptance of who you are you start chanting and the vibrations make change!!! I do Aum , Mahamrityunjaya mantra and Gayatri mantra verbally x11 each takes about 5 minutes. We have 24 hrs in a day 5 mins for the Self ???These are the teachings of the late Paramahamsa Satyananda .. give it a go…
I love this mindset. It very much fits with my personal core values. It’s so easy to jump on the negative band wagon with everyone else. It seems to take no thought or effort to harp on the negative. It takes thoughtfulness and self discipline to resist that negative path and creates much more self growth. The same with training a horse. It’s easy to fall into the habit of nagging at all the wrong behaviors and not releasing and rewarding nearly enough. Confusion and resistance are the result.
Hi, I’ve worked with change within Sustainable Development for 25 years and do believe that “change happens when there is a reasonable balance between disatisfaction and hope”. So I don’t completely agree with you I think the horse community need to be able to look the bad things in the eye as well. And some of the extreme focus on the negative I think come frome the sport not really facing up to anything being bad, just kneejerk reaktions of defence. So to some (!) extent there is an overreaction from the outside to show whats not good.
So own up to changes/problems and show the solutions!
Like you say we need to own from the beginning its an asymmetrical relationship with the horse, we have all the power and it is obvious from the outside. I know its difficult but I think its important to look the problems in the eye “disatisfaction” and to look at the solutions “hope” for real change to happen. Easy to say…
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